


Off The Grid

by Jb (sg1jb)



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Gen, Post-Episode: "The Light"
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-11
Updated: 2018-08-11
Packaged: 2019-06-25 14:45:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15642915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sg1jb/pseuds/Jb
Summary: Off The Grid ... aka, Off His Rocker ... aka, 'Oops' ...Three weeks off in a palace by the beach doesn't get off to a very good start - this is, after all, SG-1 we're talking about here.





	Off The Grid

**Author's Note:**

>   
> 
> Written for Fig Newton's August 2018 Alphabet Soup - 'Off-Screen Missions'  
> The off-screen mission I chose to write is post-"The Light" ; the three weeks that the team stays on the planet to get over their addiction. My letter is 'O'.

 

 

 

It was all starting out just fine ... until it wasn't. 

Step One was to compile the initial to-do and must-have lists, and they'd all agreed it'd be nice to somehow – that 'somehow' being Sam-how – tap into the Palace's seemingly-abundant power source. Naquadah generators didn't grow on trees, and considering SG-1 had blown up the last one they'd been given, it was highly unlikely the general would look kindly on them monopolising the SGC's single remaining fully tested one. 

The spectre of a noisy gas generator powering their electronics and charging laptop batteries was less than appealing, so special goodies necessary for Step Two – Sam trying to tap in – were added to their must-have requests. And as they waited for their order to be filled, the next thing they'd done was to figuratively pin Loren to the wall until he'd fessed up as to the location of his food source. Apparently trust didn't come easily to Loren, even despite the fledgling bond between him and Jack, but he eventually showed them a staircase leading to lower levels none of them were even aware existed, and, from there, led the way through a warren of corridors to the kitchens. 

Reactions to the well stocked pantries were less than positive – food stored for over one hundred years was pretty much entirely gag-worthy. The existence of a still working, half-full freezer was another matter: Jack immediately began composing a foods wish-list, including good old thick slabs of beef plus a variety of gourmet ice cream flavours; Sam just as immediately found and gushed over the refrigeration control panel, theorising on how she might try to tap into the power there if they couldn't find the bank of main power crystals that, despite Loren's repeated claim that he'd never seen such a thing, absolutely had to be somewhere in the complex; and Daniel, for his part, groaned with the realisation of just how much work he had to do and how quickly he needed to do it.

The running water in the fountains and washrooms, working ceiling lights, and an obviously controlled indoor climate had given him pause upon his initial arrival here; most intact but long-unused Goa'uld facilities they'd found had been methodically stripped, laid bare of anything even remotely useful. But before he could follow up on that thought he'd been distracted by the light hologram and ... well. Yeah. That.

Now, with that distraction gone, it seemed clear that all of it added up to a place that hadn't been intentionally retired from use. So he'd need to get on with translating despite the headache that incessantly banged away at him and how tired he felt. No lounging around eating ice cream for him – just a lot of tedious work trying to decipher the obscure dialect, in the hopes of finding out which Goa'uld this place had belonged to and why they might have stopped using it. If they even had.

As for Loren, he'd hovered anxiously by the door to the cavernous kitchen, clearly torn between a need to accept SG-1 as friends and a fear of losing control over his primary means of survival. The conflict was obvious, and while Daniel could empathise and wanted to help he really didn't have enough experience with kids to know just how best to reassure the boy. Fortunately, Jack did know just what to do. That Jack had absolutely no intention of tasting any of the century-old frozen food was obvious to everyone but Loren, so involving Loren in helping to sort the frozen goods into reserved 'Loren' and 'Jack' piles did way more than any words Daniel might have been able to come up with. 

And bang, just like that, Sam got what she needed: the location of the main power room was offered up a la carte amidst a pile of favourite frozen breads, meats, and a large vat of freezer-burned unidentifiable mush.

So they all paid a visit to Crystal-Central, and before long Step Two got underway. Daniel's job, assigned to him in deference to his fatigue – a result of both recently having been in cardiac arrest and his brain chemistry bouncing off-kilter all over the map – was to sit in the Light Room and monitor the modified circuit tester Sam hooked up to what she promised was the device's power input. Because, god forbid they tripped its circuit breaker without realising it.

So that's where he'd parked, cross-legged on the floor leaning back against the wall, facing the light fountain, armed with a radio and a foil packet of nausea-inducing electrolyte and glucose-laden syrup Dr. Fraiser had sent over especially for him. And that's where he was, the packet at his lips, reluctantly sipping orange glop, when without warning the lights went out. 

Not just when the lights went out, though, but when all the power went out. To everything. Not only did the ceiling lights suddenly go dark, but also the soft breath of circulating fresh air snuffed out, the trickling from the water fountain in the room around the corner muted ... and, most troubling, the little light on the modified circuit breaker just as abruptly snapped off.

Momentarily shocked, Daniel sat in pitch darkness with a hand and faceful of sticky syrup, staring in the direction of the fountain to where that reassuring little green light had been in full glow an instant before. He dropped the burst packet of syrup, and his clean hand reached out, more slowly than he preferred as if with a mind of its own afraid of encountering some unknown obstruction, to pick up the radio on the floor beside him. 

"Uhm, Sam?" he tried, and after what felt like forever went by without any response, despite a few more prompts on his part, he started to freak out a bit. When a reply did finally come, it was from Jack, who confirmed that he and Loren were in the dark as well, still in the kitchen where Sam had left them watching over the refrigeration controls. When the power went out, the freezer door had closed with them inside. No radio signal in there, and it had taken Jack a bit to get the door open.

"So there's power to the door?" Daniel asked, hope rising at the thought that if the outage hadn't affected everything, it might be an easy fix. 

"No. No juice here at all, as far as I can tell." Considering the freezer door was operated by a switch and had a powered locking system, that was confusing, until Jack fessed up. "So, yeah, I might've been leaning against the door and jumped a bit when the power went out. It swung closed, and, if you're tempted to laugh right now, Daniel ... just don't." 

Right. There weren't any handles on either side of the door. "Not laughing," Daniel assured him. "There's nothing funny about almost getting trapped in a Goa'uld freezer. At least, not until Ferreti gets his hands on the story. Jack, Sam was in the power room and she didn't answer ..."

"Yeah. I know. Go silent; I'll try her again." 

So Daniel sat quietly in the dark, listening anxiously to no response after no response as Jack hailed Sam, waited, hailed again, and then again.

When Jack gave up and checked in with him again, Daniel couldn't help but jerk his head up in alarm, looking toward the entrance to the Light Room, as Jack advised he thought he'd might have heard a faint noise come from the direction of the kitchen doorway just as the power failed. "A snap-crackle," he said, and, "Sounded like a force field. And if that's right, there's a good chance it's blocked off the entrance." 

Daniel hadn't heard anything, but then again the pop of the foil packet bursting into his face might have something to do with that? He sure hoped Jack was mistaken, or that even if he wasn't, the same problem wouldn't exist here. Being trapped in a room with the most efficient dopamine inhibitor in the universe, and not being able to turn it off by turning it back on, wasn't anywhere on Daniel's bucket list. 

"Breathe, Daniel," Jack advised, "Don't panic quite yet. That might not be what I heard; we're just going to check it out now..." There was a grunt, then he continued," Provided we can find our way across the damned room."

"Yeah, uh, you should know: the little green light is out, Jack," Daniel told him.

There was a moment of silence, long enough that Daniel wasn't certain Jack had heard him and very nearly activated his comm to repeat himself. But then it clicked, and, thankfully, this time it was Sam on the radio. "Copy that, Daniel," she said, her voice oddly muffled. "I'm in the dark here too." There was an unusual scritching sound and a few irregular clicks, then she was back. "Sir, been a bit of a mishap; I'm all right, but I really need an extra set of hands here, asap." 

"The mag light show anything at your doorway, Carter?" 

Daniel's relief at hearing Sam was okay was abruptly blunted by aggravation: Sam had a light? Why hadn't he been given a flashlight? Surely, when mucking about with the power, lights all-around might've been a good idea, no? Surely a flashlight should have been higher on the 'Daniel must-have' list than a gag-inducing packet of syrup.

Other than a repeat of the scritching and the sound of her radio clicking off, there was no response to Jack's question. They waited, but there was nothing. Into that vacant space, Daniel found himself keying his comm, asking, "Do you have a flashlight, Jack?" He immediately winced at both his plaintive tone of voice and having asked what he knew was a stupid question.

"If I did, would I be crashing into counters trying to get to a doorway I can't see?" came the answer, then, "Hold on; I'll be back at you when we get there."

He flipped the cover off his watch, lit the display, took note of the time, then settled himself to wait. And waited some more, occupying himself with trying to wipe the stickiness off his fingers onto his pant-leg. Then he continued to wait, and waited even more. When his chronometer said a chunk of seven-plus minutes had gone by, he gripped the radio tightly at its base to prevent himself from nagging. A further five minutes later, he struggled to his feet without the aid of either hand, just to be doing something. He thought about pacing a bit to ease the tension, but god forbid he paced just too many steps in the wrong direction if there might be an energy field in the room with him. 

His concern for Sam, whose response to Jack's question was still MIA, had mounted to an almost intolerable level by the time his comm came alive again. And thank goodness, it was Sam, back amid a squeal of interference. "Sorry, Sir, I can't reach the light; my hands are full. The power crystal drawer broke when I slid it out. Most of the crystals dislodged and the whole drawer is hanging by a thread. It won't slide back in and I can't risk dropping it." 

Oh. Okay, so that wasn't good. It explained the muffled quality of Sam's voice and the unusual noises – no doubt some part of her rubbing against the radio as she struggled to send – but it meant she wasn't going to be able to work on the power outage until she got some help in there. Daniel bent to scrabble around on the floor until he found the discarded foil packet, turned in the direction of the nearby entrance, and with one hand outstretched shuffled toward it. He felt a tell-tale staticky tingle in his fingertips after eight short steps, and swore under his breath. It looked, or felt actually, like Jack was right: they were trapped in their rooms. 

After a few more cautious steps forward, he tossed the packet ahead of him. It hit the field with a sharp crack! and a instantaneous flare of light so bright it was as a knife to the eyeballs. They slammed closed and were still closed, tears streaming down his face as his eyes unsuccessfully tried to lubricate the pain away, when a few moments later his comm activated. "Nobody move – Daniel, sound-off! Now!"

Daniel automatically froze in place. He raised his radio but then thought better of it and took a couple of giant steps backward, away from the energy field, before sending. "Here," he complied, then quickly, illicitly, added, "Not going anywhere any time soon, either."

"Got that. Now shut up for a second, okay? Carter? You copy?"

While the message behind the rebuke was warranted – something had obviously happened at Jack's end, and Daniel knew he shouldn't have done anything other than sound-off as ordered – irritation flared nevertheless. 'Shut up'? Damn it, that kind of language was never acceptable, not under any circumstances. 

With rising concern, tinged with irritation, he listened as Sam confirmed she wasn't yet buried under a pile of broken crystals, and as Jack confirmed that yes they'd found a force field. And yes, it blocked the entrance to the kitchen. The conversation, and Daniel's mood, was hampered by frequent outages on Sam's part and Jack's unwillingness to carry on until she'd managed to come back on and assure him she was fine. All annoyance abruptly fled in favour of alarm, though, at the information that Loren was down ... that he had accidentally come into contact with the energy field and however many very long minutes had passed before Jack had been able to break him free. 

Daniel had already depressed his comm key to blurt out his concern when he remembered he was supposed to shut up, and that actually Jack was still talking so he couldn't send anyways. He backed yet another step away from the field in front of him, reaching up to swipe a forearm across his still stinging eyes. This was awful. What were they going to do now? There must be something ... he paced, sticky hand wound in his hair, pushing back an incipient anger over the situation, trying to think as he waited for his turn to speak, for an opportunity to ask about Loren.

Belatedly releasing his talk key, he was suddenly hit with a burst of noise spewing out of the radio, aimed directly at him. Jack was all but shouting at him to respond – dammit Daniel, respond now. What the hell? He must have missed a question or a prompt, or something, from Jack.

So he responded. "No need to raise your voice. I'm right here, doing just what you told me to do."

"What? Come again?"

Oh boy, hopefully that didn't mean there was a problem with their comms. That'd be all they needed right now. "I'm right here," Daniel repeated, "Do you read me?"

"Yes, Daniel. I read you." The reply was measured, the words carefully separated from one another by a dash of what sounded like restrained impatience. "What do you mean, doing what I told you to do?"

Oh, come on. Was this to be his fate, stuck in a dark room forever doomed to repeat himself to a man who heard but didn't actually listen to him? "Just a minute ago you told me not to move, and to shut up," he elaborated – unnecessarily, in his opinion – in a tone matching the impatient tolerance that'd just been directed at him. When there wasn't an immediate reply, he pressed to send again and belatedly added, "I'm sorry about Loren. How's he doing?"

The ensuing pause grated on him, as did the fact it was Sam, rather than Jack, that came back at him. "Daniel, how do you feel?" 

What? Oh for ... fine. "I feel fine," he snapped into the radio. A banging headache. Bit tired. A lot annoyed by the non sequitur, because given the trouble they were in it was a stupid question. "Thanks for asking. How do you feel?"

The longer silence that followed closed in like a hand of death reaching through the darkness for him. Suffocating, as it inexorably squeezed him into a corner. Okay, wait ... just, wait. He slowly turned his head, knowing he wouldn't see a little green light of salvation no matter how desperately he hoped for it, equally knowing that its absence was the real answer to Sam's question. Not a non sequitur at all. "I feel ... sick," he whispered into the dark. 

"Sir," came back Sam into the loneliness of that interval, her muffled voice over the radio like blunt fingers dragging against his scalp, "His cumulative length of exposure is easily five times that of ours."

Daniel sank down to sit on the floor, drawing his own fingers through his hair. Oh, crap. He continued on down, to lay flat out on his back, as Jack chimed in with his usual lack of any shred of human decency whatsoever ... "So, no magical complete reset in rising from the dead, eh Carter?"

Yeah, okay, maybe he was being too hard on Jack, about the human decency thing. Daniel knew it wasn't true – that was the neurochemical imbalance speaking. Its new words jumped unbidden from somewhere in the depths of his neurons to his mouth, and he found himself muttering aloud that yeah, Jack could muster up some human decency ... when it served the man to do so. He snorted a bit at that, then laughed as he realised giving into the urge to be downright sullen, even nasty, was kind of enjoyable. For the moment.

So there you go; he wasn't fine at all. Not by a long shot. This time, he knew what was going on and no way did he want to slide down that rabbit hole again. There had to be some way out of this mess. If Sam could have re-seated the power crystals without help she would have done it by now, so ... but, hang on. Wait a minute ...

"I'm sorry, guys," he transmitted. "I'll try to control it. Sam, there has to be some power still on, right? I mean, the force fields require a power supply, right? Oh..." he quickly added, "Sorry, I guess you've guessed that I found out there's a field locking me in here, too, right?"

"Yeah, we got that, Daniel. Look, just don't go anywhere near it. However you figured out it's there, don't do it again. Just leave the damned thing alone. You hear me?"

"I hear you. But, what, Jack?" Daniel had to work to tamp down the revived irritation. "Is that what you think is going to get us out of this? Sitting tight and shutting up?"

"Provided we don't kill our batteries with unnecessary chatter, when Hammond dials in with the next load of supplies we'll tell him what's going on. Can you hold on until then, Carter?"

There were two unsuccessful attempts to respond, laden with clicks and strange noises, before Sam got her comm to stay active. "If I don't have to struggle with the radio, I think I can probably hang on to the drawer for a few hours at least. But Sir, he thinks we've got all we need for now, so he probably won't dial in for another seven or eight hours, when the samples for Janet are due. And even if it is sooner, I don't think D– " And she was gone mid-sentence, no doubt having lost control of the talk button.

Daniel flipped the cover on his chronometer, trying to remember what time it was when he'd last checked. Or, alternatively, when he'd first sat down in here. He did a double-take upon seeing how much more time had passed than he'd imagined; he could triple his original estimate, and still fall short of reality. Either his sense of time was totally skewed, or perhaps he'd lost a chunk of ... time ... some ... where ... oh. 

Jack urgently, loudly, ordering him to respond seemingly just a few minutes after having told him to shut up ... only it hadn't been just a few minutes, had it? Flaky is as flaky does, his malfunctioning pre-frontal cortex taunted him, and Daniel groaned, understanding now that he'd mismanaged his comm without even being aware of it. He really needed to get a grip here.

He forced himself to climb up out of his own thoughts, just in time to hear the now-usual clicks and odd noises that accompanied Sam getting control of her own comm. She didn't bother apologising for having disappeared on them again. "No, there isn't any power still on anywhere," she said, against a backdrop of coarse rustling, "This drawer holds the main power crystals and their connections; it's akin to a master circuit board, and believe me, I did a good job on it." 

It took him a moment to clue in that she was responding to his own question, but once his brain kicked back into gear he realised her answer simply provoked more questions: so where was the power for the energy fields coming from; how and why did they activate when they did; and, one other question which arose from the first two – one that he didn't like even thinking about, never mind voicing. He had to, though. "So if the fields get their power from somewhere else, then even if you did get the drawer back into place and the power back on, that doesn't necessarily mean the force fields would turn back off? I mean," he blurted out his fear, speaking quickly even though he knew they couldn't successfully interrupt him, "I don't know about you guys, but it seems to me that trapped is trapped, lights on or not. The only difference is whether we die of altered brain chemistry, or of dehydration." 

"Hey now," Jack warned him. "None of that talk. That's not going to happen; we'll figure this out."

"Yeah?" Daniel challenged, unable to still his tongue even knowing the outburst was uncalled for, was borne of illness. "And how do we do that? Oh, wait, I forgot: it's fine for you, sitting there surrounded by food and with, what? What did Sam say? Five times less exposure? Sure, Jack, you go right ahead and be as positive as you want."

The silence seemed to drone on forever before Sam asked, "How long, Sir?"

The question baffled him until he heard the answer. "About 115 minutes, give or take. Frankly, I'm getting pretty tetchy, myself."

Right. Coming up on two hours with no power – a big chunk of which had simply disappeared without his realising it – and Daniel was already feeling swamped enough that he wasn't sure how much longer it'd be before rational thought would be beyond him. And if it wasn't this alternating swell and trough of fear, anger, and hopelessness that kept him from concentrating and surely would disable him sooner before later, it would be his mounting headache and nausea. What, three to four more hours, however much longer if he was lucky? Really, he had no clue. It might've taken him over ten hours back at the SGC to go from simply angry and reactive to completely losing the plot, but, as Jack had so tactfully said, there'd been "no magical complete reset". Obviously his brain chemistry had recovered somewhat from where it'd left off when he'd arrested, but, just as obviously, not by enough to grant him the luxury of another eight hours.

"So, doing the math here ..." There was a short pause, during which Jack must have realised being facetious wasn't helpful. "Behind all that sarcasm, Daniel's right," he acknowledged. "We've got some serious time constraints here. The only way to fix that problem is to get the power back on. We need to figure out how to get that drawer stabilised before you can't hold onto it any longer, Carter."

Well, unless Jack could walk through a ... oh, geez, Daniel suddenly realised he'd forgotten to ask about Loren. He hoped the boy was all right – and in fact it was an important bit of information, even beyond being rightly concerned for his welfare. Knowing how long it'd take to recover from contact with the field would be very useful in figuring out just how far they could go with trying to get through it.

"Trying, Sir, but I don–" and she was, again, gone in a rough crackle and click.

Into the vacuum of her absence, Daniel piped up, voicing not only his concern for Loren but also putting forward the idea that Loren's experience could help them in terms of of testing out the field in various ways. It was for naught, though, as the only reply he got was a terse command. "Don't mess with that thing, Daniel – that's an order. I repeat: do not even think about trying to touch the energy field."

Argh. Jack could be such an ... . "Well, Colonel, Sir," Daniel spoke slowly, enunciating clearly because he felt like he'd explode if he had to repeat himself. "Unless Sam miraculously grows two more arms, the only way to help her in time is for one of us to get to her. And even if the SCG just as miraculously dialled us up six hours early, the only way Teal'c could get to her is to, oh gee, look at that: find a way to get the barriers down. Sam, if you can hear this ..." he quickly added, "If the energy fields are powered independently of the main system, why did they come on when they did? And where is their power source? Could it be local to each field?"

"Sorry; my grip shifted for a moment. I've been thinking about that," Sam answered. "It's probably an emergency containment system, set up with a Goa'uld equivalent to Automatic Transfer Switches. There might be an adapted power crystal located in a control panel somewhere distal to the main board, programmed to activate upon certain set parameters, with separate receivers at each force field location. Or, yes," she admitted, "there could be individual power sources and transfer switches at each location."

Daniel thought about that, as he dutifully but impatiently waited, listening for a click that'd mean Jack had something to say. Certain parameters – such as a power failure, just like a generator that came on automatically when loss of mains power was detected. This had to be a purposeful lock-down, a security measure ... and just like the more sophisticated security systems at home, an independent means of power was mandatory.

"Separate devices? What, like rechargeable automatic battery backups?" Jack chimed in.

Half-listening while Sam allowed it was, yes, kind of like that, Sir, except of course predominantly wireless in nature, Daniel couldn't help but look through the dark in the direction of the doorway, trying to visualise the room's entranceway. And yes ... yes, yes, his mind's eye showed him the inch-wide gap on all three surfaces of the door frame, the deep channel he'd previously noticed but dismissed as being simply decorative. His initial excitement blunted right away, though, at the realisation the chances of being able to find the field's On switch – Jack's 'battery backup', so to speak – were probably slim to none. It was likely embedded within the wall or the lintel, and even if there was a hidden surface panel, it could just as easily be outside the room as inside. Plus, well, blacker than black darkness here.

He listened to Jack say he was on it, checking the room for any hairline cracks in the walls that might be a panel door, ordering Daniel to do the same but for god's sake don't touch the frigging energy field in the process. Sure, Jack, he radioed back, keeping it simple because although his irritation and fear wanted to reel off the reasons that was a nigh impossible task, there was no point – no doubt Jack already knew, and as Daniel had nothing better to offer just yet, he'd best keep his mouth shut for now. 

It was, at least, something to do while he wallowed in impotence. He started toward the doorway but caution drove him back after only a few steps. It was dark and he didn't remember how far he was from the entrance; he wasn't about to rely on the assumption he'd feel the static charge before he blundered forward that half-step too far. A quick search of his pants pockets yielded nothing but laundry lint, but wait, he did have ...

Ow! Okay, a boot hitting the field sparked one hell of a bright flash, way way more intense than the foil packet had done. It hurt like hell and he froze in place, fireworks going off behind his closed eyelids, deciding he wasn't going to try that again. This was unlike any Goa'uld force field they'd ever encountered, where the field would flare blue with a solid zap if you touched it but not sear your eyeballs out of their sockets; either this one was malfunctioning or the snake that owned this place had confused – or, more likely, married – the concept of containment with that of extreme corporal punishment. 

He needed something smaller, lighter, but not so light that he'd have to be very close to the field before it'd cover the distance. Taking his t-shirt off wasn't an attractive idea, given how cold it was already getting in here, so he did an abrupt left turn and got down on hands and knees to feel his way over to the light fountain and the tools he was pretty sure they'd left on the floor there – a leatherman, a pencil and pad of paper, the rem– Oh, hell, he was an idiot.

He crawled, stretching an arm out after each move forward, lest his earlier pacing had brought him closer than he knew, not wanting to bonk his head on the pedestal – if, that is, he was even going in the right direction. The room wasn't very large, and both his aim and caution were confirmed as after just five slides forward his hand made contact not 16 inches in front of his nose. So that's where he was, sitting beside the light pedestal feeling around on the floor at its base, when the fact he was even more of an idiot than he'd thought was soundly confirmed by the radio squawking out Jack's voice ... coming from behind him, on the floor back where he'd started from.

He decide to postpone crawling back over there to respond to Jack's call for an update; he had no update to give yet, not until he'd found what he was looking for and had a chance to check it out. It might be, probably was, a total dead end, and there was nothing to be gained from using up comm batteries on half-baked theory based more on faint hope than realistic appraisal. In fact, he probably should just turn the thing off completely, if he wanted to conserve battery power. He really should. 

He'd already turned back to go do just that when he realised he'd forgotten something. The stuff; he needed to retrieve the stuff he'd come over here for. Daniel suddenly wondered if he might be closer to incapable of realistic appraisal than he realised ... which was demoralising thought, in a catch-22 sort of way, really, because what if maybe he was already there? How would he know? Surely, even the slightest chance he might not be capable of realistic appraisal was enough to cast doubt on his appraisal of his own condition ... including on whether or not the chance he wasn't competent even existed in the first place.

He turned back, and after a bit of feeling around his hand closed over what he'd been looking for just as Jack's request was repeated. In the few seconds it took for him to also locate and grab the leatherman and pencil, that request turned into a demand. Scrambling backward, Daniel found the comm and reported in: sorry for the delay, I'm all right; nothing yet, Jack, but I'm working on it. He didn't feel hesitant nor the least bit guilty about the blatant misdirection – he had no intention of playing blind man's buff with the walls – so yeah, he wasn't entirely himself. Didn't mean he wasn't rational, though, right?

A twist of his fingers snapped the power off, so as to not further waste the batteries. He tucked the comm into a thigh pocket so he couldn't accidentally leave it behind again; it'd be annoying in the extreme to have to crawl around on the floor looking for it should he need to contact Jack. Next thing next: he cupped the Goa'uld remote in his hand and activated it, hoping against hope that the energy field's power source, or whatever signal had activated the fields, might also power the device. He sat staring down through the dark at his hand for too many minutes, hope plummeting and frustration rising, until he remembered the remote wasn't back-lit – as far as he knew, anyway – and perhaps that was the reason he wasn't seeing anything.

Yup, stupid is as stupid does. If he hadn't already had such a severe headache, he'd hit his head against the floor in self-punishment. Okay, so, how then to tell if it was working or not? When he'd had it turned on before it hadn't heated up in his hand, nor vibrated or buzzed or beeped, so ...? Right; the only way he'd know was to see it, but he didn't have a flashlight. Sam had one, but she wasn't able to bring it to him, was she. He almost gave up there and then, wondering if there was even any point to making the effort; after all, he'd no idea if the device could operate anything other than the light matrix hologram. He'd stopped investigating its functions as soon as he realised he could use it to turn off the visual display – and wasn't that always the way? Everything he worked on, all his efforts, ended up being curtailed in favour of what the rest of the team needed. Every damned time.

Daniel took a deep breath and gathered up whatever resolve he could muster. Giving up meant they might all die here, and that was unacceptable. All he needed was an alternate light source. He again searched his pockets but had nothing – no penlight, no matches, de nada. He'd need to speak to Janet about that; you'd think the infirmary staff would know that people going off-world needed more than just lint in their pockets. Yeah, his life was in the hands of a bunch of geniuses; he might as well just lie down and die right now.

Wait, he did have one light source ... a tiny one, but maybe it'd be enough to at least see if the display was on? His hands were shaking so it took a few moments to remove his watch, and pop the cover open. With both it and the device held close enough to his face that he bumped the device with his nose, he thumbed on the chrono's back-light. He squinted at it, angled the watch this way and that and back again ... but it didn't work. The glow was too weak, not able to illuminate anything beyond the face of the watch itself. 

He was at a dead end. Dead, dead, dead, dead end, and all because other people didn't have the foresight to ensure he had what he needed. Nothing new there, though, was there? In a fit of pique, he hurled the watch away with a snap of his wrist. It struck the energy field with a bright burst that once again sent hot knives into his eyes and left him with white spots blooming in his visual fields. That, combined with the flare of his headache suddenly ramping up to an almost intolerable level, left him huddled into himself, nauseated, struggling to ride out the pain ... but not defeated, because now everything was going to be all right. He had found his light source, and he'd use it to illuminate the face of the Goa'uld hand-held computer and figure out which screen he could use to turn off the energy field. 

Jack had ordered him not to come into contact with the field, which was probably a decent piece of advice, so he'd need to find some way to light it up and keep it that way while he did his translations. Eyes still closed, tearing buckets, Daniel uncurled from his huddle and refused to allow the increasing nausea to deter him in considering what he had on-hand. A pen and a pad of paper; a leatherman; his comm; a watch that had rebounded off the field and gone who knows where, so cross that one off the list; and ... what else? One boot, which he immediately dismissed as being too big. If he wanted to avoid blinding himself, it'd likely be best to limit contact to a fairly small surface area. Plus he'd have to be sure his head was turned one-hundred-eighty degrees from the doorway.

All his attention and concentration, all his efforts and hopes, tunnelled into solitary focus on his task. Working by feel, he took off his remaining boot, stripped out the lace, and used it to fasten the leatherman to the end of his comm's antenna, and the pen to the leatherman. His fingertips studied the result, and he was pleased with his accomplishment. It was an elegant solution to the problem of reach; no doubt, this would extend far enough forward that he wouldn't be at risk of accidentally touching the field. Daniel took a deep breath and slowly slid on his butt across the floor toward the room's entrance. He kept moving forward until he felt the static charge tingle on his unshod foot, then carefully placed the makeshift divining rod on the floor in front of him. A moment of doubt – was he totally crazy? – gave him pause, until he reminded himself that right at this moment Sam was sitting there cradling a drawer in her lap, while Jack was stumbling around in the dark fondling the architecture. So, who was the crazy one?

Feeling around to align himself with what he hoped would momentarily become a light pointer, Daniel got set and slowly, carefully, used the sole of his boot against the flat bottom of the radio to slide it closer to the field. It took a lot more convincing to do than he'd expected; yes, maybe he was crazy, his resolve weakening with each inch of hard-fought forward progress. The admission that he was not only afraid of the energy field but also pretty sure he'd fail spectacularly came more easily to him than he ever would have expected in the past. 

He wasn't certain how long he sat there, trying and failing both to keep himself focused on what he had to do, and his stomach contents where they belonged. After losing the second of those battles, turning away and noisily vomiting, he stayed stretched out on the floor and wondered why he bothered. What was it about him, that he was compelled to tilt at windmills no matter the wisdom or cost of the effort? 

Out of desperation, knowing he was a scant second from giving up, he gave the boot a solid shove and snapped his hand away from it. Nothing happened. Unsure if it was just that he wasn't close enough or if the comm-leatherman-pen combination might have slid sideways, or, not slid anywhere at all, he tried to psyche himself up to reach out with his bare hand to locate and re-align it if need be. But he couldn't do it. He simply couldn't do it. That one last attempt that could well save all their lives, and he couldn't bring himself to do it because he was afraid of failing. 

A last-gasp burst of anger forced a violent kick out of him. His foot connected with the boot, sending it flying forward, and abruptly the field lit up with the intensity of a blowtorch at two paces and stayed that way. It was unexpected, he wasn't ready, and as his eyes boiled out of their sockets and his head exploded in incandescence, all he could do was laugh as he realised he was no further ahead, because oh yeah, for sure, he was about to pass out and probably wouldn't be waking up again. 

Failure snatched from the jaws of success – yep, that was him all over. And with that thought, he was gone.

 

************************************************** 

 

Consciousness returned slowly, tortuously. A vague cascade of sound he couldn't place, a thunderous headache, sharp pain in both eyes, throat filled with stomach acid while his heart pounded a scarily irregular tattoo and lungs felt starved for air – this was his awakening. Except for the eyes, all of it felt recently familiar, and even as he willed himself to drop into insensibility once again, to escape back into unconsciousness, something inside him recognised waking up as the gift it was. 

He couldn't possibly have moved a muscle nor opened his eyes, not yet anyway, no matter the necessity; the best he could do was lie there and hope to god the nausea and pressure in his head would lighten soon. The background noise gradually became clearer, coalesced, becoming recogniseable as voices. He strained to hear, to understand the words; maybe they'd tell him here he was and what was going on?

"Okay, done. We set it up all the way," he heard. Sam?

"So how long before it does its thing?" A deeper voice ... "Tell me, Carter, tell me there's a good reason why we didn't do this right from the start. Tell me that thing hasn't made us permanently stupid." Jack – definitely, Jack.

"Because Daniel was right, Sir; there was no way to know this would happen. It could easily have gone the other way."

"Oh, sure, right." The resentment was loud and clear even through Daniel's muddy perceptions. "That better not be your way of telling me I'm the only stupid one here." There was a pause, some rustling, then Daniel became aware of a presence hovering over him as Jack added, "Crap. Sorry. This withdrawal thing sucks eggs." 

Withdrawal thing? What was ... oh. A quiet groan escaped as Daniel remembered the where and the why – stuck in the Goa'uld palace, the power failure that exposed them to the deadly effects of withdrawal. The details escaped him, but enough memory was returning that Daniel realised that not only had the the power been restored, but also the energy fields that had been like death sentences coming down must have also been dealt with. Otherwise, Sam and Jack wouldn't be here – where ever he was; was he still in the light room? – at his side.

He tried to speak but wasn't sure he produced anything other than another faint moan. It apparently was enough to catch Sam's attention though. "Daniel? He's coming around, Sir." 

A hand briefly grasped his chin then became a series of pats on his cheek. "Wakey, wakey," Jack sang. "You've got some 'xplaining to do, Lucy."

"Sir." A rebuke, although a mild enough one that it confirmed it wasn't only Jack who felt Daniel had done something wrong. 

Daniel struggled to crack open his stinging eyes. For a moment he wasn't sure if the dark grey wash across his vision was him, something wrong with his eyes, or the environment. He squinted, straining to see more clearly what he thought was Sam's face hovering above his own. And, Jack, too. "Still in the dark?" he managed to force out. He still felt like crap overall, but the nausea had inched back somewhat and his mind was rapidly clearing. 

"Yes and no," was the answer, and Sam turned away for a second. "Can you turn the ... yes, that's good, thanks." 

The dark grey transitioned to irregular areas of bright and shadow, and Daniel realised that someone had adjusted the aim of a light, probably a flood lamp judging from the coverage area of the beam. So, all the power had not been restored ... but, it must, at least, have been to the light device, or he'd likely be dead, right? "So, not dead," he mumbled. "You guys okay?"

Jack changed position on the floor next to him, jostling his side in the process, and Daniel pulled his arm away to give Jack more room, pleased that he was now able to move at least some part of his body. He reached up to rub at his eyes, but his hand was pulled away. "Maybe don't do that," Jack advised. "Your eyes are red enough already. Jesus, Daniel, what the hell were you thinking?"

What? Daniel peered at Jack. "What? I don't understand ..."

"The energy barrier has resulted in temporary mild damage to your eyes," came another voice, and Daniel tracked its direction to see Teal'c standing a short distance behind where Sam sat to his right. He was close to overwhelmed by gratitude at the sight of him – not only was his sight almost back to normal, but also Teal'c's presence here meant everything was going to be all right now.

"I believe O'Neill is referring to the actions you took with respect to the barrier." Teal'c explained, "As I understand it, you were ordered not to approach it."

He didn't remember ... oh, wait, yes, he did remember that. Jack on the comm, telling him in no uncertain terms not to mess with the field. He remembered that now, and also vaguely recalled a decision to check the walls of the rooms for anything that might be a panel cover ... and, then ... what? He turned his head to scan his surroundings, and yes, he was still in the light room. He saw flood lamps on light stands placed at various locations, one of which illuminated the fountain's control pedestal, and another aimed roughly in his direction. Hands helped him as he struggled to sit up, and once the dizziness subsided he caught sight of several other lights positioned in the reception area just outside the entranceway. There was a low growl, a deep background noise he was now aware wasn't in fact in his own head, coming from that direction. A generator.

"What happened with the crystals?" he asked, not sure if the generator was because only some of them had been damaged and Sam hadn't been able to figure out how to interface with the rest, or if something worse had happened.

"Kaput," Jack told him. "Broken to bits. Smashed to smithereens." Oh no. Oh, god.

"I dropped the drawer, Daniel," Sam more gently filled him in. "We couldn't raise you, and when after three hours the Colonel still hadn't found anything, we had to take the chance. I was the only one with a light; if there was an independent power supply local to the energy field, I was the only one with any real chance of finding it."

And she had, obviously. "Thank you," Daniel whispered, knowing how much courage and clear-headed thinking under duress had been involved in taking that last-ditch risk. "Did you permanently disable them? They won't come on again?"

"Nope, and, don't have a clue," Jack chipped in again, apparently perversely enjoying the effect his flippant answers had on Daniel's nerves. Hopefully that was just Jack's state of withdrawal speaking; if not, it meant Daniel was in for a bit of a rough time.

"The barriers closed down on their own when the central panel was destroyed, Daniel Jackson," Teal'c told him. "Immediately adjacent to each barrier is a receiver and power source; the triggering signal is sent from a remote location – usually in the main bank of crystals. It is an older Goa'uld control system, which was in common use several centuries ago."

"No, they won't come on again," Sam told him, casting a stern look toward Jack. "The control crystal responsible for activating them, and sending the signal to keep them up, was destroyed when I let go. It must have been one of the ones still properly seated when the drawer came loose, so it was still able to sense interference with the power system and do its thing."

Until it was smashed right along with all the others, right. With all the others ... Daniel couldn't help but turn to stare in the direction of the light fountain. "Don't worry; it's fine," Sam reassured him. "Teal'c brought the reactor and we figured out how to connect it directly to the device as an independent power source. We're using it exclusively with the pedestal, to avoid any further power interruptions. This won't happen again."

Oh. So ...

"Yep," Jack confirmed. "We're pretty much off the grid for the duration. We've got a diesel generator for essential lighting, water supply pumps, and air circulation. Have to be careful with the load, so we don't have refrigeration and the SGC will be on battery-charging duty for us."

The mention of refrigeration brought to mind something else. Daniel glanced around the room doing a head-count, and came up one short. Jack caught him at it, and the change in mood was as abrupt and noticeable as the flare of light from the energy barriers had been. There was a book's-worth of warning written in the lines carved into Jack's face, in the sudden rigidity in his posture; obviously, Daniel had missed a boat somewhere along the line and shouldn't even need to ask. Honestly, he didn't want to hear it anyway. At least, not right now. For now, maybe it was best left untold.

With a deep breath that spoke of the effort behind putting it aside, Jack clearly agreed with that, as he changed the subject, his tone now a mix of rebuke and barely revealed ... what? Was that amusement Daniel heard under the disapproval, as Jack said, "Now, I repeat: what the hell were you thinking?"

Daniel wasn't sure how to respond. Much of the time following the last thing he could remember clearly – Jack telling him to start looking for a panel somewhere in the light room – was at best deeply muddied, awash with vague impressions of emotions and sensations he couldn't be certain he'd actually felt, and with snatches of almost dreamlike, equally vague recollections: Jack's voice over the radio; feeling around on the floor looking for, something, he wasn't sure what; his feet being cold. And, completely out of tune with the other impressions, having a feeling of great accomplishment, of satisfaction in a job well done. He'd no idea what any of that meant though.

"I'm sorry, I don't know," he told them, sincerely at a loss and feeling no small amount of concern that he might have done something completely and utterly stupid that Jack might never let him forget. "I don't remember much past you telling me to look for a panel ... it's all just, disjointed impressions. What did I do?" 

"Well, Jack said, reaching behind him to pick something up off the floor. "You did this. Do you remember this?"

In his hand was the strangest assemblage of items Daniel had seen in a long time, if ever. One rubber corner of its housing partially fused, at a crazy angle, to a section of melted rubber on the sole of a boot – which tied in nicely with the impression of having had cold feet – was a comm, his no doubt, and at the antenna end of that ... uhm, yeah. In an elaborate but utterly helter-skelter jumble of knots and spirals, possibly poorly-done attempts at a series of half-hitches, the lace diagonally joined the comm's antenna first to a leatherman, and some two inches from the end of that dangled a pen, wound with the lace which then doubled back on itself to attach to the bit of lace between the antenna and the leatherman. 

The whole creation dangled in a floppy mess from the boot as Jack held it up in display, and okay, yeah, clearly that was the question of the day: What the hell had he been thinking? 

That half-remembered feeling of great satisfaction and accomplishment stepped forward out of the morass, its hand raised in a 'me, me, pick me, pick me' gesture. As Jack wiggled the lovingly crafted, bizarre contraption around in the air and with raised eyebrows simply said, "Hmm, Daniel?", all he could do was wince in embarrassment. 

Not only off the grid, but also apparently off his rocker. God, Jack was going to have a field day with this ... although, there was one thing he did remember very clearly: Jack had locked himself in a Goa'uld freezer. He wouldn't use it unless he had to, of course, but knowing it was there for him might just make the next three weeks of confinement with a bored Jack O'Neill just a bit more bearable. Maybe. Hopefully.

 

 

 

end – august 10, 2018  
SG Off-screen Missions Alphabet Soup story – the letter O; episode "The Light"


End file.
